Ira Cabrele - 1001 nights of tales and 11 days of Twitter!

1. Twitter has been my first experience of social networking in the web.. And it has been a nice experience. It gave me the opportunity to understand and know a bit more my classmates. I could not wait everyday to connect and see what other people I was following had posted. I think most people posted on Twitter random activities or thoughts or things.Very few people answered or continued an argument started from one of our peers.. So based on this I would say it was very chaotic kind of time. Very few might have experienced stellar time such as changing their course of day based on what some of us posted on Twitter. From what I saw on blog many of us experienced teleological time meaning they were not affected at all but what others had to say. I have to say I read carefully every single twitter and I was trying also to understand a little bit more about my peers in my English class. Usually it is very difficult to get to know every single one and I think twitter was great in helping us or at least me, understand more about my classmates. I cannot say that many twitters changed the course of my days but I really loved reading every single twitter and cared of what everyone of us had to say. My life in general is a stellar time...made of intermingling scenarios that have affected my entire life. I strongly believe every single person comes into our lifes for a purpose. Some times directly or indirectly each of these people we meet give us something that affects us either we recognize it or not. Stellar time in my opinion is more connected to fate and destiny.

2. In the tales of 1001 nights fate and destiny are a common theme. In fact italian filmaker Pasolini said: “every tale in 1001 Nights begins with an 'appearance of destiny' which manifests itself through an anomaly, and one anomaly always generates another. .. The protagonist of the stories is in fact destiny itself.". Stellar time is almost present in every tale. For example you can go from rags to riches by either working hard or just by being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes destiny is not good enought. You have to take advantage when the opportunity presents. For example the tale "The Fisherman and the Jinni" it is all about stellar time where intermingling scenarios affected the fisherman's life by saving not only his life but making him very rich. The fisherman was very old, and poor. He used to cast his net four times a day One day he went to the shore and cast his net. The fourth time he called upon the name of God and cast his net. He found a copper jar with a cap that had the seal of Solomon on it. The fisherman was so happy as he thought he could sell the jar for money. He was curious of what was inside the jar, and removed the cap with his knife. A Jinni came out of the jar who granted the fisherman a choice of the manner of his death. The fisherman pleaded for his life, but the Jinni would not concede. The fisherman decided to trick the Jinni. He asked the Jinni how he managed to fit into the bottle. The Jinni, eager to show off, shrank and placed himself back into the bottle to demonstrate his abilities. The fisherman quickly put the cap back on and threatened to throw it back to the sea. The Jinni pleaded with the fisherman, who began to tell the story of "The Wazir and the Sage Duban" as an example of why the Jinni should have spared him. After the story, the Jinni pleaded for clemency, and swore to help him in return for being released. The fisherman accepted the bargain, and released the Jinni. The Jinni then led the fisherman to a pond with many exotic fish, and the fisherman caught four. Before disappearing, the Jinni told the fisherman to give the fish to the Sultan. The fisherman did so and was rewarded with money for presenting the fishes. Every time a fish was fried, a person would appear and question them, and the fish answered. the Sultan asked the fisherman where he got the fish and went to the pond to uncover their mystery. When he reached his destination, the Sultan found a young man who was half man and half stone. The young man recounted his story, as the story of "The Ensorcelled Prince". The Sultan then assisted the Prince in his liberation and revenge. They became close friends, and the fisherman who first found the fish was rewarded with his son being appointed the Sultan's treasurer, and the Sultan and the prince married the fisherman's two daughters.

3. Afghanistan — One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question. “Are you going to school?”Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read. This is an extract from an article on NY times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/asia/14kandahar.html). Women in some muslim countries are not even allowed to go to school. And another episode shocked me from an article in AM NY of Oct.22nd " Kwait's highest court granted women the right to obtain a passport without their husband's approval. In many countries in this region women cannot travel or obtain passport without the consent of their male guardians". This was quite a shocking news to a woman like me, who was raised in an Western country and who started to travel indipendently at the age of 14. Scheherazade is definitely a woman who could have been killed or burned by acid by fanatics in countries such as Afghanistan or Kwait. The King Shahryar is an example of a fanatic man at the begenning of the story. He was marrying a new virgin, every day and beheading the one of yesterday only because he found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed three thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter. In Sir. Richard F. Burton's translation Shahrazad was described in this way: "Shahrazad had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."
Scheherazade did not use her body or beauty to seduce the king. Instead she used her wisdom to make the king change his mind and have her not killed. She was married by the king and became queen. From the examples I brought even the king would have not been accepted in some fanatic muslim cultures since he was seduced by a woman's wisdom. For certain fanatics by no means a woman can be wise or think to seduce a man using her wisdom and knowledge.

I really hope in these countries things start to change. For example in Kwait a small change happened by giving woman passports. Women can start travelling and come like this in contact with other cultures and meet new people. I understand that religion is very important for many countries and people, but I do not tollerate when it is used by fanatics to do their own interest and treat women like they are people of an inferior category. There is no GOD in this world that can tollerate or be happy to watch a woman being tortured or being burned by acid. If he does, then sorry but for me he is not the right God! Unfortunately many of these monsters act under the name of God. Everyone who names GOD in doing such atrocities is just a poor COWARD.

It is not the fault of the religion itself even though sometimes it might appears...Muslim religion is as beautiful as Christian of Judaism. Unfortunately religion becomes a dangerous weapon when used from fanatics to do their crazy actions using God as their inspiration. By doing so, and by committing crimes,these fanatics put ashame the muslim culture and tradition. But we have to be smart and open minded and not risk in generalizing and judging a whole beautiful culture and tradition such as Muslim.